A Study Of John Donne's Poems From The Perspective Of Ethical Literary Criticism

John Donne(1572-1631)was a leading exponent of Metaphysical poetry,and composed copious poems in all his life.He created poems with different themes and thoughts in different stages of life,which were the authentic depiction of his life.This thesis attempts to interpret Donne's poems with the method of ethical literary criticism,which advocates returning to the ethical scene of the poet's life,and analyzes the ethical identity,ethical paradox and ethical selection,and also the efforts to achieve the ethical salvation.Ethical literary criticism is a literary research method that interprets,analyzes and explains literature from ethical standpoint.Taking Donne's Elegies,Divine Poems and The Anniversaries as examples,this thesis combines the theories of ethical literary criticism to reveal Donne's ethical significance of his poems from three perspectives,namely the love ethics,religious ethics and subsistence ethics.Based on it,the thesis is divided into three chapters.Chapter One studies the love ethics in Donne's love poetry.Most of Elegies belongs to early poetry.In these poems,he overturns his predecessors' tradition,denies the spiritual love,treats women with ironic and disrespectful attitudes,and deprives women of right to choose from self-ethical identity.Meanwhile,Donne also shows the superiority and dominant tendency of men.At the same time,Donne is also pursuing the harmony between body and soul in his poems.Thus,his love ethics is embodied in the unity of spiritual love and physical love.Chapter Two discusses the religious ethics in divine poems.Donne's divine poems were written in his later years.In these religious poems,apostasy has a great influence on Donne's life.Although he converts to the Anglican Church due to the practical factors,he remains faithful to the Catholic God from beginning to end.At the same time,Donne is full of sinfulness because of changing his faith.The ethical paradox of faith and reality comes from his apostasy.Donne is anxious under such a sinfulness and self-torture,the original beliefs and the realistic environment make him doubt the true faith.Therefore,it is demonstrated that Donne's way of solving ethical confusion is to seek God's help.Chapter Three examines the subsistence ethics in The Anniversaries.Donne is nominally commemorating the death of Miss Drury in poems,but actually expresses his concern for the fate of mankind.The social environment of religious disputes and political turmoil has caused Donne to doubt the nature of the world and man.In his anniversaries,Donne interprets individual's independence,death and immortality by praising the soul.Therefore,Donne's core issue of subsistence ethics is the salvation of the soul by means of rebuilding the cosmic movement.The conclusion summarizes the whole thesis,pointing out that Donne's love ethics is based on the attitude of treating the relationship between men and women,pursuing the harmony between spirit and flesh;religious ethics shows the solution to sinfulness and confusion is to seek God's help;the subsistence ethics interprets the attribution of subsistence ethics,which is soul's salvation through the attention to individual's independence,death and immortality.